


Reborn

by Rainbowcat



Category: Superstore (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-08 09:31:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14102484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainbowcat/pseuds/Rainbowcat
Summary: It wasn’t because Jonah had been particularly struggling in his classes or that b-school was too challenging, too stressful. It wasn’t because he felt overwhelmed. It was because he didn’t.The story of Jonah's few hours before coming to Cloud 9.





	Reborn

Four hours and thirty-four minutes left. It’s a little past eight in the morning, and Jonah Simms is just outside of St. Louis, Missouri.

Not that the landscape would be any indicator. Before this last year, Jonah hadn’t spent extensive time – any time, really – in the Midwest before, and it’s sort of bland. He’d considered swinging by downtown St. Louis if not just to see the iconic arch, especially after having watched that Lewis and Clark play at local theater a few weeks ago, but ultimately decided against it. Best get to Chicago when it’s still midday, to settle in. He can’t see the arch from here. In fact, he can’t see much of anything. It’s just him and the open road, with the occasional car or two going the other way.

The Midwest is flat. Flat and dry. The early-morning sky is an uncertain, dish-water gray, as if it hasn’t committed yet to what shade it wants to be or how many clouds to have.

Jonah drives. 

The Honda Civic was a hand-me-down from Eli. Back when they were in their early twenties, Eli moved to San Francisco, where in a startuppy, VC-fueled haze he bought himself a Tesla. Jonah inherited the Civic and the mounting pressure to be the third and final Simms to make it to Booth.

Jonah drives.

When his parents had arrived at the hospital, an impressive twelve hours after Jonah himself landed there, he told them the lie that came most easily. In the stress and chaos of studying for finals, he’d overexerted himself and forgotten to drink water for forty-eight hours. It’s not like he would have been the first Chicago kid to suffer a dehydration spell. His mother cooed and swept his hair off of his damp forehead. His father made phone calls. In a tone suspended ominously between anger, defensiveness, and relief, he told Jonah that they’d secured his spot at Booth, that despite missing his finals he could do make-up exams and his grades wouldn’t have to take too large a hit. Good old Dad, pulling strings with the alumni board as always, casting doubt on the legitimacy of Jonah’s acceptance in the first place. 

Alcohol poisoning was a form of dehydration, Jonah supposed. The worst part of it wasn’t the fact that he drank enough to be hospitalized – that was a rite of passage Ben and Eli had gone through in their undergrad days as well – but that he’d been drinking alone. Decker barged in at three in the morning (no knocking, as per usual, and for once his lack of etiquette proved at least marginally useful in that it saved Jonah’s life) to demand Jonah’s portion of the study guide, and found him lying on the floor blue-lipped and still.

It wasn’t because Jonah had been particularly struggling in his classes or that b-school was too challenging, too stressful. It wasn’t because he felt overwhelmed. It was because he didn’t. 

But he didn’t have the words to explain that to his parents, so he let his mom fuss over the blankets and the incline of the bed and said nothing.

Jonah drums his fingers on the steering wheel, and drives.

The road – it’s not really a highway, it’s the strange back-road Waze insisted on taking him on – is an unbroken line, and on it Jonah can see his future yawning out ahead of him. In four hours and twenty-nine minutes, he’ll arrive in Chicago, unload the few boxes and the bike strapped to the roof of the car, go get takeout sushi. He’ll start his second and final year of classes, study, drink, see House of Cards when there’s time, go on Tinder dates, pass finals, get his MBA. He’ll chat up recruiters at career fairs and tell them why, exactly, he’s better than Decker and Garcia and Sandberg and Bogdanov and whoever else may have called him a friend his first year, take a job with McKinsey or Goldman, pull all-nighters while clawing his way up the ranks to partner or MD.

Jonah knows, he’s seen this movie, and still it spools out in front of him as the sky darkens overhead and the ground becomes impossibly flatter. He’ll marry a trophy wife, have two kids and a dog, move his family to the Connecticut suburbs, and somewhere between those commutes into the city and sleepless nights at the office he’ll get divorced. His wife gets the kids – they visit on weekends and he pays alimony – he keeps the dog as consolation prize, starts dating a girl in her twenties. He buys a Porsche that seats three: him, his girlfriend, his beer belly. He contributes to his kids’ college fund and his 401(k), he plays golf, he sees his b-school buddies during reunions sometimes and Garcia is CEO now just like he always wanted, he retires to his money-

Jonah lets out a low moan-

All that money he’s spent so long amassing, where’s that got him now, it’s a four-bedroom in Westport and no one to fill it but him and the kids that visit sometimes and the spirit of the dog that died long ago, no new puppy taking its place, and luckily he’ll be able to afford assisted living-

Jonah slams on the brakes. His head snaps forward and he bites his tongue, drawing blood.

He scrambles to unbuckle himself and throws open the door of the car. Jonah barely makes outside before he’s on all fours. 

The asphalt bites into his palms as he vomits. It’s the night before finals all over again only this time he’s sober, and retching out the thin black coffee he had for breakfast and cheap diner food from the night before. A car swerves around him and honks, in annoyance or sympathy, he doesn’t really know. Jonah heaves again and there’s nothing left.

It feels like hours pass as he’s on his hands and knees shaking, but still his watch reads just past eight. He pushes himself to a kneeling position and watches vomit form rivulets in the road.

Finally, Jonah stands. He touches his face and it’s clammy. There’s an SUV approaching.

The car slows and Jonah straightens up reflexively. The SUV pulls up behind him, on the shoulder of the road like he should’ve done. The door opens and a man gets out. 

The stranger is pretty unassuming, all things considered. He’s a middle-aged white guy with grayish hair. He’s wearing a blue shirt and a tie with clouds on it. Jonah wipes his mouth.

“Hi,” says the stranger in an oddly Kermit-esque voice that seems to match his physique. “I was getting gas, and, you don’t look so good.”

“I don’t feel so good,” Jonah allows.

The man pouts and it’s almost comic the way it transfigures his whole face. He dives back into his car, rummages around, and pulls out an opened bottle of something violently orange and a half-empty pack of tissues.

“Juice?”

Jonah accepts the bottle, cracks it open and takes a few sips. It’s overly sweet but it makes him feel better, and as he wipes at his mouth and chin with a tissue he’s overcome with embarrassment. 

“Thank you, I- this is like, the nicest thing anyone’s done for me, uh-” Jonah breaks off as the man beams at him, and he ducks his head to take another sip.

“Maybe you shouldn’t drive?” the stranger suggests.

“Oh, no, no, I’m totally okay. I mean, I’m not _okay_ okay, but I can drive, I’m just heading back to-” Jonah hooks his thumb toward the road ahead of him and breaks off again as the realization stabs him in the throat. “Fuck. I can’t – I need to – I can’t go back to Booth.”

“Don’t go back to Booth!” the man chirps instantly, voice rising in pitch, and Jonah startles. “What’s Booth?”

“Oh, it’s – nevermind, I just-” Jonah picks at the label on the bottle. “I have somewhere that I need to be. But I don’t really – I can’t be there right now. I just can’t be.” He’s never said nearly as much to anyone, ever, and the moment the words come out something in his chest unclenches.

“God has a plan for everyone,” the man says patiently, and seems to take Jonah’s surprised bark of laughter as agreement, because he smiles wider. “So just trust that God is guiding you down the right path!”

Jonah wonders if he's died and gone to Christian heaven, if all those years of Hebrew school were for nothing. He considers the idea and finds he's sort of okay with it. “I’m not sure what path that is,” Jonah confesses, omitting the part where he’s not sure who or what God is, either. 

“Then maybe this was a sign,” the other says, and Jonah flushes red when he sees the man gesturing at the puddle of sick drying on the road. 

“I just… really need some food.” There’s an almond butter and banana sandwich in the car that Jonah packed for lunch, but right now he’s craving a burger and fries, or anything else that would make Morgan Spurlock cry and make more documentaries. He also wants a bed and a blanket and a hug, but food would be a good place to start. “And a place to stay. And a job.”

The man is smiling again, or maybe he never actually stopped. “Well _I_ know where you can get food _and_ a job. I mean they aren’t hiring right now, but luckily for you I know the manager and he just might make an exception. Nice guy.”

Gratitude floods Jonah. “That- that would be amazing, actually. Can you give me directions?”

“Even better, I’ll drive there with you. Follow me!” He spins around and heads back to his car. 

Jonah blinks at the abrupt end to the conversation, but the stranger’s already turned on the car and is backing up. He squints down the road, wondering whether he's about to get kidnapped and ransomed, but something about the juice bottle in his hands and the breeze stirring his hair and the lightness in his heart tell him otherwise.

He takes a last look at the road he won’t be driving down and ducks into the driver’s seat.

The SUV turns and Jonah follows suit. It’s around eight-thirty in the morning. The sky had clouded considerably the past few minutes, but as the two cars head towards St. Louis, Jonah sees glimmers of sunlight fighting their way through, a moment of beauty.

**Author's Note:**

> In the show, Jonah's introduced as a funny gimmick, a sheltered but well-intended white man who's finally encountering life outside of his privileged little bubble. But for a character like Jonah to actually make this sort of decision and abandon the life that he grew up expected and expecting to have, that's huge. I wanted to examine what must have happened in order for him to have that kind of break. (It doesn't _quite_ match up with canon, but that's never stopped me before!)


End file.
